Arguments
2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
Posted on 17 November 2024 by BaerbelW, Doug Bostrom, John Hartz
Story of the week
Our Story of the Week is completely "meta" (no, not that Meta). It's about our exploring how to improve the utility of the feature you're reading right now.
Sharp-eyed or possibly even distracted regular readers of our weekly climate news roundup will have noticed some distinct differences in the prior two editions to this latest, compared with the past 634 releases.
Typically our weekly listing of news and analysis centered on climate change has been displayed in chronological order, more-or-less following the sequence of original article publication dates. This is a perspective that sometimes affords readers a sense of the development of particlarly prominent stories, a useful view of major developments.
There are other ways of measuring the weight and meaning of news about our climate. Given that many of us are likely to have special areas of interest, it can be particularly helpful when articles are categorized by their common themes of topic matter (click here or the thumbnail for an example). Our readers have remarked on this and we'd certainly like to follow through on worthy suggestions for improvements. But categorization means effort— time taken from the scanty and overcommited budget of minutes afforded by the all-volunteer crew running our weekly features.
For the past three weeks we've experimented with creating digests of the respective week's news via "AI" services, first with Google's Gemini and then (when Gemini proved unreliable) OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Neither method produces exactly what we'd like to see, which ideally would be comprehensive categorization of thematically related news and analysis, with direct link access to component articles of each category and with "lede" elements offering readers a hint of why they might be interested in reading any given item. We're left with a twist on the old "80:20" rule; here the last 20% of what we need is quite materially important to our objectives.
We're going to continue tinkering with what we think may well end up as an improved "product." The semi-automated work flow behind the Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup is well suited to an additional integration step. It's a plain fact that uncategorized information is harder for readers to access, so if there's a way to achieve this improvement we'll seek to follow it.
In connection with any decision to use the current achingly energy inefficient generative LLMs, it's worth taking energy usage into account. Kilowatt hours in still mean kilograms of CO2 out despite whatever handwaving about offsets or other accounting tricks are used to salve our consciences. An astute reader pointed this out in comments, unsurprisingly given that AI industry "demands" for power are reaching absurd levels definitely needing to be questioned and possibly denied permission. The answer to this, in our context? It may come as a surprise, but even with the generosity of ignoring embodied carbon costs for creating a human capable of productively spending an hour at a computer keyboard it appears that for our context here, it's likely more efficient to use a stochastic parrot as an assistant.
At any rate we've paused our experimentation to step back and consider where to go next, and so this week's liisting is in the chronological format we've been using for the past few months— similar to that of the prior 600 or so editions. Meanwhile we'd be delighted to hear your thoughts on where we might best go with this feature, AI-augmented or not.
Stories we promoted this week, by publication date:
Before November 10
- How is climate misinformation evolving? (a podcast), BBC, Jordan Dunbar. Climate science and reporting are vital to understanding how our climate is changing. But false information spread online is causing big problems and it’s getting harder to spot.
- Experts: What does a Trump presidency mean for climate action?, Carbon Brief, Molly Lempriere. The Republican candidate Donald Trump has been elected as the 47th US president, beating his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris in a “historic comeback”.
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #45 2024, Skeptical Science, Doug Bostrom & Marc Kodack. Skeptical Science's weekly survey of newly published research on climate change.
- Brazil Hopes to Make the Amazon a Model for a Green Economy, Yale Environment 360, Fred Pearce. "As he prepares to host the G20 summit, Brazil’s president is championing initiatives to promote a 'bioeconomy' in the Amazon that protects biodiversity and helps Indigenous residents. The goal: To get governments to commit to a new economic vision that is truly sustainable."
- WHO demands urgent integration of health in climate negotiations ahead of COP29, WHO News Release, Staff.
November 10
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #45, Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler, Doug Bostrom & John Hartz. A listing of 33 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, November 3, 2024 thru Sat, November 9, 2024.
- Climate Advocacy Groups Say They’re Ready for Trump 2.0, Justice & Climate, Inside Climate News, Georgina Gustin. "Disheartened, worried, even scared, activists and strategists are nevertheless better prepared this time around and bracing for a long fight."
- Cop29: what are carbon credits and why are they so controversial?, Explainer/Environment, The Guardian, Patrick Greenfield. "Once heavily scorned because of fraud and poor outcomes, carbon trading is likely to be high on the agenda in Baku"
November 11
- Mysterious craters exploded in Siberia’s permafrost. Scientists say they now know why, Climate, CNN, Laura Paddison.
- COP29 Bulletin Day 1: Agenda row resolved and US reassures on emissions, Climate Home News, Joe Lo, Megan Rowling, Matteo Civillini, Mariel Lozada, Sebastian Rodriguez & Vivian Chime. "UN climate summit kicks off in Baku, with negotiators reaching compromise on the agenda and US climate envoy saying emissions will keep falling"
- At Cop29, we must treat the climate crisis with the same urgency as Covid – history shows it can be done, Comment is Free, The Guardian, Opinion by Mukhtar Babayev. "This emergency will cost trillions of dollars, and is beyond the reach of developing nations. Private investors have to step up"
- He’ll try, but Trump can’t stop the clean energy revolution, Climate+Economics, Grist, Matt Simon. "The cost of renewables is plummeting, heat pumps are selling like crazy, and red states are raking in cash from the IRA."
November 12
- Biden just finalized a major climate rule. This one could be tricky for Trump to dismantle, Climate, CNN, Ella Nilsen.
- Fossil Fuel Giants Paying Thousands to Sponsor COP29 Events, DeSmog, Sam Bright. Oil and gas majors are splashing the cash in order to have a presence at the flagship climate talks in Azerbaijan.
- COP29 Bulletin Day 2: Aliyev defends fossil fuels, G77 unites on finance goal, Climate Home News,, Staff. Lede: "Azerbaijan’s president repeats his claim that oil and gas are a 'gift from the god' before the UN chief says 'doubling down on fossil fuels is absurd'.”
- Is COP29 “breakthrough” on UN carbon market all it seems?, Climate Home News, Matteo Civillini. "Azerbaijan presidency claims Article 6 could help countries save $250 billion a year – but experts warn UN carbon trading is still some way off"
- Countries spend huge sums on fossil fuel subsidies – why they’re so hard to eliminate, Environment & Energy, The Conversation US, Bruce Hukber.
- Katharine Hayhoe’s Post-Election Advice: Fight Fear, Embrace Hope and Work Together, Science, Inside Climate News, Dan Gearino. "The Texas-based scientist warns people who care about climate change and the energy transition against despair—and looks to examples from the Bible."Katharine Hayhoe’s Post-Election Advice: Fight Fear, Embrace Hope and Work Together
November 13
- 20 fact briefs published in collaboration with Gigafact!, Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler.
- Oil Industry Asks Trump to Repeal Major Climate Policies, Fossil fuels, Nicholas Kusnetz. "The American Petroleum Institute’s list of requests to the incoming Trump administration would remove many of the available federal tools to rein in deadly global warming."
- Global CO2 emissions will reach new high in 2024 despite slower growth, Emissions, Carbon Brief, Zeke Hausfather & Pierre Friedlingstein.
- Climate vs. weather: a deep dive on the key differences, Science Feedback, Darrik Burns. Climate and weather are different concepts – climate change occurs at much longer timescales
- We Study Climate Change. We Can’t Explain What We’re Seeing., New York Times, Gavin Schmidt and Zeke Hausfather.
- We Study Climate Change. We Can’t Explain What We’re Seeing., Opinion, New York Times, Gavin Schmidt & Zeke Hausfather.
November 14
- Tropical Storm Sara closes in on ‘life-threatening’ and ‘potentially catastrophic’ impact with Central America, Weather, CNN, Mary Gilbert.
- We passed 1.5°C of human-caused warming this year (just not as the Paris agreement measures it), Environment, The Conversation UK, Andrew Jarvis & Piers Forster.
- Shell’s successful appeal will not end climate lawsuits against firms, say experts, Environment, The Guardian, Isabella Kaminski. "Dutch appeal court ruled in favour of oil and gas company over judgment telling it to limit emissions"
- To Protect the Ozone Layer and Slow Global Warming, Fertilizers Must Be Deployed More Efficiently, UN Says, Inside Climate News, Georgina Gustin.
November 15
- The question bringing COP29 to a halt: Who’s rich enough to pay for climate change?, Climate & International, Grist, Jake Bittle. "Trillions of dollars depend on whether major emerging economies like China will have to step up climate aid."
- Fossil fuel bosses get `red carpet` at Cop29 despite concerns over influence, The Guardian, Damian Carrington, Dharna Noor, Ajit Niranjan and Fiona Harvey in Baku. Revealed: more than 100 executives given special guest badges as activists challenge role of oil and gas firms at talks
- Here’s how governments could fix their Paris climate commitment failures, Policy & Politics, Yale Climate Connections,, Dana Nuccitelli. "There are no technological barriers to meeting the goals of the agreement. Governments simply aren’t deploying the solutions fast enough, the United Nations reports."
- China must now lead global warming fight, UN climate chief says "The U.S. has traditionally taken a key leadership role, but Donald Trump’s return has thrown that into doubt." by Sara Schonhardt & Zia Weise, Energy & Climate, Politico, Nov 15, 2024
November 16
- What the Earth`s Recent Heat Uptick Could Mean for the Climate Fight, Inside Climate News, Interview by Jenni Doering, Living on Earth. And why one climate scientist still has reasons to hope.
- British Gas Given Under the Radar Access to COP29 Climate Summit, DeSmog, Sam Bright. The boss of the UK’s largest gas supplier is listed as a representative of an African NGO.
You might check the May 2021 article out from PLoS One on Article level classification of scieentific publications. What came to mine when I skimmed this article is that for your purposes it might be worth getting a bibliometric analyst involved in your stable of volunteers and she/he might be able to take your latest batch of articles you want to post on the site and whip them into taxonomic shape in no time, categorizing them into clear categories without any AI involved. I suspect that there are some out there who would understand the carbon footprint issues that AI represents and could figure out a way to do it sans the energy intensive approach.
I am willing to accept that there may be a positive efficiency difference between using a stochastic parrot and a human, or humans, to hunt for relevant articles that readers of this site will find informative or even useful. I'm not entirely convinced, and the link in this Story of the Week post is broken regarding AI vs. human writing and illustrating work. And it sounds a little too much like the John Henry fable updated.
There is also the ethical question that comes with using the products of large corporations whose investors who don't give a fig about the climate impact of the energy use from running LLMs. What they want is to continue to capture huge swaths of surplus value from the labor of others (as the Marxists would call it) and use their profits to extract excess rent (as economists would call it) in the form of public policy that favors their interests.
I don't know what the best solution is for the humans working very hard to maintain this site. For my own purposes, the chronological listing of reports and articles is more than satisfactory. It is easy to sift through to find what interests me, which tend to be the peer-reviewed research. So please accept my thanks for all that you do to inform us. I accept that it is best to leave up to you how to improve the product and ease your burdens.
Cleanair27 @2
Thanks for the heads-up regarding the broken link. It's now fixed (and goes to the same published paper linked to in my earlier comment about this topic.
As an aside (and most likely stating the obvious): if you are especially interested in peer-reviewed literature, our weekly compilation has "tons" of just that!
I agree with wilddouglascounty’s recommendation. Climate science communication specialists should be able establish a helpful set of categories for the Weekly News Items.
Part of my work as a Civil/Structural technical specialist in a major engineering organization was collecting reference information on a diversity of relevant topics. My approach was to use a high-level set of identifiable categories with General (or Other) for everything that did not fit in an established category. As the information accumulated I would create new basic categories for suitable groups of information from the General category. And when appropriate I would create sub-categories in the basic categories.
Though they would not be relevant for the Weekly News Items, here are some categories I had that were related directly to climate change (they indicate why I pursued learning about rapid human caused climate change):
Possible categories are the science of climate change, climate projections, climate mitigation and adaptation, politics of climate change, the denialist campaign, and miscellaneous issues.
I am reviewing the categories created by AI for Weekly News #43, #44, and #45. I hope to post a result soon.
However, I have noticed a problem that using AI did not solve. In Week #44 the first category was for COP16. This Week's list is dominated by COP29. The problem is the failure to fully describe the COPs. They are:
That full understanding is clear when reading each article. But the category title should fully describe the content rather than require a review of the content to determine what is in the category.
A Climate Science Communications specialist could likely develop a better categorization. However, I compiled the following ‘primary categories’ based on the Weekly News categories created by AI in Weeks #43, 44, and 45 and the set of categories suggested by nigelj @5.
Climate Change Impacts: Environmental-Social-Economic (interrelated)
Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation: Intimately correlated. More mitigation requires less adaptation.
Climate Science and Research:
Public Misconceptions and Climate Science: Disinformation and Misinformation
Climate Policy and Politics:
International Climate Conferences and Agreements:
• UN Climate Change COPs
• UN Biodiversity COPs
Miscellaneous (Other):
The AI generated listings for Weeks #43, 44 and 45 also provide a large number of potential ‘secondary categories’.